Italy in small bites
‘If you want to represent Italy… you need a three-kilometer-long buffet.’
THE CUISINE of Italy is said to be so diverse that after mastering one Italian dish, you travel to the next town and the recipe for that dish would be completely different. One can therefore never get bored of Italian food.
Seda BGC’s roof deck bar, Straight Up, has spread out an Italian feast of little nibbles to eat between meals in an apericena buffet called La Buona Cucina Italiana, that will run in the hotel until Feb. 6.
The dishes we tried were largely uncomplicated, but bursting with flavor. The spread was prepared by visiting Italian chef Salvatore de Vincentis, who has worked all over the world, from the Middle East to several cities in the United States. The dishes included piquant little cherry tomatoes skewered with little balls of mozzarella, Italian cold cuts, which included hams and anchovies in oil (the white anchovies were a winner, displaying a tart flavor akin to pickled herring instead of a heavy salty taste), crisp little meatballs Mr. De Vincentis called “Mama- style,” and bruschetta topped with juicy black olives and mushrooms.
For heavier fare, Mr. De Vincentis prepared paccheri (think of oversized cylindrical pasta) with Bolognese sauce. Now this pasta is special: Mr. De Vincentis had the ingredients brought over from Italy, and this pasta is made in Gragnano, apparently the home of the world’s best pasta. Another winner is an unassuming risotto, made with butter and parmesan cheese, and nothing else (except maybe a suspicion of some citrus flavor). It’s heavy but heavenly, and though good sense tells you to stop eating the heavy, creamy rice, you just keep coming back for more.
Well, dessert only makes you sin some more: think of Italian pastries, such as a Neapolitan Baba, soaked in rum, or a huge round graffa, about the size of a teenager’s palm, which oozes and drips with honey and marmalade at a bite. Then there are these little cunning balls of dough, topped with chocolate, bleeding raspberry jam from the center.
“Every region has their own ingredients… if you touch the 20 regions, you find totally different ingredients, different characteristics,” said Mr. De Vincentis of his home country’s cuisine.
Seda’s General Manager Andrea Mastellone, and a fellow Italian, added, “The climate… allows us to have an enormous variety of products, that go from [a] warm climate to the cold climate. This is the particularity of Italy.
“If you want to represent Italy… you need a three kilometerlong buffet,” he said.
Meanwhile, he pointed out through Straight Up’s window an expansion of the hotel, undergoing construction. The new wing will boast of over 300 new rooms, a ballroom, and a new roof deck bar.
Mr. De Vincentis will be back in March for another food promotion at Seda BGC.
In the meantime, after its run at the Seda BGC, the Italian food promotion will be held at the Seda Centrio, Cagayan de Oro City from Feb. 9 to 20; Seda Nuvali, Laguna from Feb. 23 to 29; Seda Abreeza, Davao from March 4 to 12; and Seda Atria, Iloilo from March 14 to 19.
The Italian food promo costs about P500++, and if you add a wine buffet option, the price reaches up to P1,000++.